The President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government, has proposed to spend N9.4 billion on Residential and Office rents for Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, as well as several Foreign Missions, in 2018.

The 2018 budget submitted to the National Assembly recently, showed that residential apartments for top civil servants, including official quarters for personnel in Nigeria’s Foreign Missions, will consume N5 billion, while office rents for MDAs and Foreign Missions, will gulp N4.48 billion.

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, last year, revealed that Nigeria spent N3.55 billion on rent, in a three year period, from 2012 to 2014.

Analysis shows that the amount to be spent on rent this year, is about 265 percent more than the amount spent on the same purpose, between 2012 and 2014.

Adeosun had tasked the Efficiency Unit, to focus on the issuance of price guidelines and initiatives for reducing expenditure on rent on office and residential buildings, but it appears not much has been done in this direction.

There have been calls for the utilisation of confiscated buildings recovered by the Federal Government, for public office and residential purposes.

The breakdown of the 2018 budget proposal, showed that the Federal Government will pay 150 residential rents, and 232 office rents next year.

Analysis of the office rents showed that the country’s Foreign Missions in Algiers, Hong Kong, and Berlin, are the most expensive rents among the Foreign Mission.

The Federal Government will pay N48.97 million for the Foreign Mission office rent in Algiers, N39.20 million in Hong Kong, N30.45 million in Berlin, as well as N48.87 million for the office of the Consulate General, Frankfurt, Germany.

An examination of the budget for the residential rents as contained in the proposal, showed that Nigeria’s Defense Intelligence Missions will gulp the highest amount of N1.4 billion, followed by the Air Force, N124 million.

The budget for house rent for Nigeria’s over 20 Defense Missions abroad, comes at a time when federal Lawmakers have advocated for their holistic review.